BRIC can be larger than G6 in future

New Delhi, Apr 18 (UNI) Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) economies could become a much larger force in the world economy and at the projected pace together could be larger than the G6 in US dollar terms and by 2025, they could account for more than half the size of the G6 in 40 years.

America-based Goldman Sachs has predicted that India will become the engine for global economy by quadrupling its per capita incomes by 2020, increase consumption of cars by five times, crude oil by three times, and an exponential rise in its housing, real estate and urban infrastructure.

''Increased demand from BRIC countries will eventually quadruple G6 countries demand and will reach to 521 billion dollar by 2010 compared to G6 countries annual increase of 470 billion dollar,'' Goldman Sachs India Economist Tushar Poddar said.

G6 or the Group of Six, refers to the group of industrialized nations comprising of France, Germany, United States, Japan, United Kingdom and Italy.

He said in the new scenario, India and China will be the dominant global suppliers of manufactured goods and services and Brazil and Russia will be the dominant suppliers of minerals and raw materials.

Brazil and Russia would form logical commodity suppliers to China and India and cooperation amongst the four countries would thus create a powerful economic bloc.

Earlier, Ministry of External Affairs Joint Secretary R Viswanathan said to promote BRIC bloc, Foreign Ministers of BRIC countries will be meeting here in coming five to six months.

''We have to go beyond the blinkered mentality of India and Pakistan and seek to improve ties with Africa and Latin American countries,'' he said.

''No alliance is exclusive of the other. There are number of unusual alliances like the FTA between Chile, Japan, Indonesia, Brunei and Phillipines,'' he told UNI on asked if he ever saw BRIC becoming a political alliance.

Assocham's Immediate Past President Anil K Agarwal said the key challenges will be faced by the BRIC countries will be to maintain robust and sustainable growth in order to reduce the gap in living standards as compared to developed economies.

He said BRIC countries should take initiatives for direct air linkages, maritime linkages, R and D linkages and come closer and offer dynamic partnership to promote bilateral trade.

''The biggest benefit for India is the young work force with a median age of 24 years,'' he added.

Speakers in the conference stressed on the existence of parallel networking of nations without making way for any existing alliance.

A need to work as a partner and not as a competitor was felt by each member and a consensus was reached to prepare the population of each country to benefit from the core strengths of the countries.

UNI